Strove to find a way to punch people in the face by using the Internet.

1/08/2007

DIARY OF INDIGNITIESSuper Crazy Big-Ass Special 2006 Hughes Family Christmas Photo Extravaganza!…will not be published this year, sorry. Dad had to call off Christmas due to lack of participation. Both brothers were scheduled to work Christmas day (Neil blames “Satan worshipers”), and, evidently, the rest of the gang were leery of being outed as drunken holiday maniacs. Again. Anyway, if you like, you can follow links here to relive all the mayhem from 2004 and 2005. Or you can just go out and get your own damn family. Start a-screwin’!

So I put Plan B into effect. Plan B originally involved doing a whole lot of nothing, just taking a week off from work to sit around reading Thor comics and watching Rob and Big and generally enjoy the feeling of my brain slowly turning into a pleasant, flabby mush. Like most everything else I ever do, though, Plan B was entirely disastrous. Without the distractions of work or family boozing, it was pretty much just me alone on the couch having a staring contest with my large and fearsome collection of neuroses. (I lost.)

Oh! Wait! I did accomplish one thing. Check this bad boy out:

Yes, I made significant progress on an expensive, painful and time-consuming project, one that involves getting a giant picture of Godzilla stabbed into my back.

This particular tattoo, like many of my tattoos, unfortunately, was initiated many years ago, and under conditions that were somewhat less than ideal. Namely, a tattooer who didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. (Happily, this tattooer worked very hard over the years, eventually growing into an artist of no small merit, though this would come to pass a decade or so after my back ended up looking like I passed out at the kindergarten next door and pesky kids scrawled all over me with a green crayon.) (Again.)

I have to admit, as gray races bald for dominance of my hair and 40 looms ever closer, getting a giant Godzilla back-tattoo might not have been a super-high priority without that shitty, half-finished outline already hanging around scarring up my back*, but I’m pretty stoked on how it’s turning out. My new tattooer, Sleepy Dave Kotinsley of Anthem Tattoo, put in some real time on that bad sumbitch during my little vacation, including one session that went more than six hours and another going a little more than seven. All the gnarly tattoo dudes at the shop were impressed with my ability to take the pain of the extended sittings, but, really, compared to the Holiday Despair Couch of Severe Mental Illness waiting for me at home, sitting hunched over a chair for the entire day while someone carefully inscribed a colorful scab on my back was downright inviting.

Next up, sometime in the next few months when my BACK STOPS ITCHING OH WHY, Sleepy Dave plans to throw in a couple more shades of green and some watery colors down around my booty crack. Then, a background — Sleepy Dave suggests a dark, purple-y sky. Sounds good to me. So far his artistic intuition has served me well. Here’s a picture of Sleepy Dave:

Doesn’t that just scream “artistic intuition” at you? Like, in a loud, scary voice? Or maybe a voice like what you’d hear on the second Motley Crue album? Though I suppose the two aren't necessarily exclusive.

Here’s another photo of Sleepy Dave:

I stole that one from his Myspace page. He captioned it, “Did I leave the stove on?”

One time, at a party, there was this Slip ‘n’ Slide, and Sleepy Dave rode that thing like a man while giving our friend Hunter a piggy-back ride. Here’s a picture of Hunter:

Awwwwww yeah.

Oh, before starting in on the Godzilla, Sleepy Dave did some other neat tattoos on me too, including this one:

That last one actually covers up the first tattoo I ever got, British comic-book character Judge Dredd:

I can only explain this choice of tattoo as something that happens when an irrevocably nerdy 17-year-old tries to impress a bunch of tough-guy punk rockers and skinheads. “I’ll show them! I’ll get a tattoo of the sternest comic hero in all of my carefully bagged and boarded collection! Golly!” If this ever happens to you, and you don’t feel like a total douche within two or three years, hang around another five or six and see if they don’t make a crap Stallone film out of that sucker.

I’ve got a handful of other tattoos stemming back to the ‘80s, too, but we won’t get into all that. They’re mostly unremarkable, except for this one:

Yes, remarks one might make here include, “Is Godzilla eating a sandwich?”, “Why do you have a dinosaur smoking a cigar on your leg?” and “How many Godzilla tattoos do you need, anyway?”

Two, motherfucker. The answer is two.

Alright, to sum up: with a tattoo, the more huge and ridiculous it is, the better. And having a giant tattoo on your back is way more awesome than paying off your student loans. Also, if you’re a dude, no matter how immature and ridiculous you are, there’s a guy out there on the Internet somewhere who just lapped you. Oh, in a couple of months you should really buy this. That’s all for now.